What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is a technology used by organizations of all sizes to increase efficiency across their marketing teams. With an automation platform in place, marketers can automate a number of their ongoing processes like deploying email touchpoints, qualifying prospects, and nurturing prospects through the lead funnel. However, automation is not just a way to increase efficiency. It also allows you to elevate your marketing efforts through its ability to generate unique personalized experiences for prospects and customers, on a mass scale, via the dynamic insertion of content. With this type of personalization, you can excite prospects and customers with communications that speak directly to their unique wants, needs, and concerns. While this level of customization used to require ample manual effort (and a significant budget), with the use of automation, this can now be accomplished quickly and without breaking the bank.
Changes to Marketing Automation in the Last 5 Years
In the past, the high price of marketing automation software has made it cost prohibitive for companies with smaller marketing budgets. However, as more solutions have entered the market and subscription costs have declined, automation has become accessible to companies of all sizes. Today, marketers at small and medium-sized businesses with modest budgets can leverage automated tactics previously only available via enterprise-level software. As a result, more marketing teams are using automation than ever before. Today, “75% of marketers say they currently use at least one type of marketing automation tool” (source). The proliferation of marketing automation also means that organizations who do not deploy customized and personalized experiences will come across as less sophisticated than their competition.